The Caviart Group Takes its Bow

Clarence “Buck” Chaffee, the consultant who helped us (hugely!) to launch our certification program, sent out this press release. Take a bow, Buck!

June 3, 2011

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Clarence “Buck” Chaffee
The Caviart Group
cchaffee@thecaviartgroup.com
703-835-9697

Vienna, VA – The Society for Technical Communication (STC) launched its new international certification program for technical communicators at their annual meeting in May. The program is the first certification for technical communicators. Developed with the guidance of The Caviart Group, the program utilizes an innovative, structured assessment of work samples.

According to Kathryn Burton, CAE, STC’s Executive Director/CEO, The Caviart Group has been invaluable in helping the organization create the certification system and developing the assessment process.

“This is our first certification program and we needed a trusted, independent partner to work with us in creating a valid, legally defensible certification program,” she said. “We engaged The Caviart Group because of their extensive expertise in performance-based assessment and their experience in developing certification programs from the ground up. With their help, we were able to address a myriad of complex questions and develop and launch our program in less than eight months! Our members are very excited about the new credential and we could not be happier with the advice and service that we have received from The Caviart Group.”

Clarence “Buck” Chaffee, President of The Caviart Group, commented on the importance and challenges associated with creating a legally defensible work product assessment process. “STC had determined that they needed a performance examination to assess the complex, high-level skills required of technical communicators. Given the diversity of practice areas and communications techniques, a portfolio assessment process was desired,” said Chaffee. “The problem with traditional portfolio review processes is that each submission is different and may or may not exhibit the skills you want to assess. Different submissions are also of varying degrees of complexity and it is hard to ensure that all candidates are being evaluated for the same level of skill.”

According to Chaffee, The Caviart Group solved these problems and ensured content validity by conducting a study to define the skills required to perform the job and then defining a process through which candidates submit portions of work samples with written commentaries to demonstrate and support their claim that they possess the required skills.

“This is much different than a typical portfolio review in which raters must plow through volumes of work to try to assess a candidate’s abilities,” says Chaffee. “Instead, we require candidates to create a number of short, very specific submissions. These submissions must demonstrate specific skills and must be accompanied by a written commentary that explains how the work sample demonstrates those skills. Both the work sample and the commentary are evaluated.”

To ensure uniform scoring and guard against bias, The Caviart Group created a scoring system that electronically distributes each submission to a number of subject matter expert raters. In total, candidates may have as many as 18 subject matter experts involved in assessing their work.

“We have created human-scored examinations for more than 30 years,” said Chaffee. “This assessment process has been built on that experience to provide an assessment that is fair and accurate and will stand up to all testing industry standards. We are very pleased that STC selected The Caviart Group to help them with this very interesting and challenging project.”

About STC

STC is the world’s largest and oldest professional association dedicated to the advancement of the field of technical communication. The Society’s members span the field of the technical communication profession and reach across every industry and continent. In fact, the Society has members in almost 50 countries and is continuing to grow rapidly outside of North America and Europe.

Through a growing global community, the Society and its members set the global standards for technical communication. The Society’s award-winning publications, Intercom and Technical Communication, are widely read in the field of technical communication, and its annual conference is one of the most-attended technical communication events of the year.

ABOUT THE CAVIART GROUP

The Caviart Group is a partnership of leading experts in the field of certification and testing with extensive experience in managing large and complex national and international projects. The principals have more than 50 years of combined experience in creating and managing professional certification programs and in designing, developing, and administering occupational and professional examinations. They have been responsible for the examination of more than one million candidates in the U.S. and abroad in both paper-and-pencil and computer-based formats.

The company specializes in technology and advanced testing. Its broad service categories include certification and assessment services such as job analyses; examination design, development and delivery; psychometrics and examination audits; and business consulting services including strategic planning, new product development, and certification management system design and implementation.

The principals have conceived, developed, and grown several very successful national and international certification and licensure programs and are uniquely qualified and experienced with both traditional and cutting-edge technology.

The Caviart Group brings to every project not only the demonstrated experience and skill necessary to perform the tasks, but also the qualities of professionalism-character, integrity and judgment-needed to ensure the credibility of results. We also provide exceptional customer care and service. Our goal is to become an integral part of our client’s team and to establish a long-term relationship.

Current Projects

We are currently helping clients develop interactive simulated equipment in the medical and engineering technology fields. We are also creating video-based items, video capture of performance tests, audio response items, distributed scoring systems, advanced candidate management systems, and we are helping several clients create new certification programs from the ground up.

Contact us today to see what The Caviart Group can do for you!

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Copyright 2011, The Caviart Group, LLC

Certification: Open for business!

STC first discussed certification at the Annual Conference in San Diego—in 1964. We’ve discussed it, on and off, ever since, mainly because many people felt it was impossible to certify technical communicators. Well, thanks to the selfless efforts of a dedicated team that was my privilege to work with, I was pleased to announce at the opening session of the STC Summit in Sacramento that the STC certification program is open for business. As Walt Disney said, it’s kind of fun to do the impossible!

Please keep in mind that for all the time and effort it’s taken to reach this goal, this is just a starting point. Nothing is going to change overnight. But I truly believe that certification will be transformational, for the profession, for its practitioners, and for our society.

We will be posting details to the certification page on STC.org as soon as we can. If you’re reading this and want to know more before then, drop me a line.

Social media meets technical writing: two stories

It’s been a deeply snowy winter in Massachusetts, with many roofs collapsing under the strain. Our snowblower, a powerful but flimsy model by a manufacturer that shall remain nameless, stopped moving, so we bought a new drive belt, and one Saturday I tackled the replacement job. I followed the owner’s manual carefully, up to the step that read, “replace the belt.” There I got stuck, because in the cramped space I could find no way to get the old belt off.
Continue reading “Social media meets technical writing: two stories”

Learning experiences and learning styles

[Edited 2/5/11] This recent article on fonts by Laura Miller on Salon.com caught my eye:

Hideous fonts may boost reading comprehension

On the subject of fonts (or, typefaces, to use the more technically accurate term), feelings often run high. People have their favorites, for reasons both practical and sentimental. The story of how Helvetica became the preeminent typeface of our times has inspired a documentary film, while loathing of Comic Sans has prompted what can only be called a typographical jihad. A surprising number of older authors name Courier as the font they prefer to write in because it resembles the characters of a typewriter and therefore kindly suggests that the current draft is still available for improvement. But surely everyone can agree that a good typeface is easy to read, right?

Well yes, we do. But Miller’s article, via Wired.com,  points to a Princeton University study that says, according to Miller, that “ugly, irregular fonts can boost the amount of information readers retain from a text.” What’s up with that? It got me thinking.

Obviously, you learn better and retain more if you pay attention, if you’re engaged. It stands to reason that something a little challenging to read makes you slow down and pay more attention.

I have another reaction to the idea. The human brain is not a computer and not a recording device. Learning requires memory, and memories are formed and strengthened by association, or cross-links, with previous or other memories. Text you read in an unusual format forms memory links not only to the information, but the unusual format or context. To give a personal example, I remember that the Continental Divide marks the geographic point where rainfall to the east flows (eventually) into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico and rainfall to the west the Pacific. I remember this information, but I also remember where I was when I first read it: in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, actually standing on the Divide. I can still visualize the plaque explaining it; and now, so can you:

On the Continental Divide

The three elements of information, location, and appearance all tie together in my memory, forming a stronger and more accessible memory than any one element. Another example: I listen to audiobooks during my commute to work, and sometimes, for a couple of days anyway, when I recall a passage of text, I can remember where I was on the road when I heard it. and vice versa. So I’m not surprised that researchers now think that what we’ve been told about study habits may be all wrong, and that going over the same information several times in different environments improves retention. As reported in the New York Times:

The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.

While the researchers quoted in the Times story go on to say that “learning styles” may not be a valid concept, I conclude that the effort we as technical communicators put into presenting information in different ways—at least when we have the time—is not wasted. I always try to pair text with an illustration of some sort. I have been justifying it by saying that some people will follow the text and some will follow the picture. But another and perhaps more accurate way to describe the effect is to say that the association between the information and the illustration will reinforce the learning by providing  additional context (scaffolding, if you will).

I think I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.

Email? lol

One hundred and fifty years ago, traditionalists predicted the telephone would never catch on as a means of business communication. What industrialist in his right mind would agree to a contract over a wire? No, the only way to conduct business was face to face.

I can remember when electronic mail first became available for business users and then general use. (Here’s a 1981 “thought leadership” ad from Honeywell describing a product that I helped document. Behold the cutting edge!)

1981 email ad
"What the heck is Electronic Mail?"

Adopting E-mail took some persuasion. At first people sniffed at the idea of dashing off an informal, unproofread e-mail instead of a carefully written memorandum. Articles were written on whether it would be accepted as credible, whether it was a step down, and even what constituted eMail etiquette. Of course, the purists were innundated by the subsequent flood of emails (even if 90% of it turned out to be junk), and in business today, an email is the de facto memo. You can get your point across just as effectively, it carries just as much weight, and if you email something stupid, you can get into just as much trouble as if you had it typed and inked your signature on it. And I think technical writers have thrived in this environment, because the impact of our writing skills were magnified. (I don’t like to get into face-to-face arguments, but I’m lethal in flame wars…!)

OK, so now it’s a generation later, and we’ve all become comfortable with email. As reported this week by the New York Times (it’s OK, I read it online), young adults consider email passé—excuse me, lame—and prefer text messages and instant messages for their immediacy. Futurists have begun to predict that companies will communicate with their customers this way. (STC Associate Fellow Jon Baker thinks it will become the primary means of communicating technical information.) The rest of us sniff at the idea. Communicating a nuanced message in 140 characters? OMG. There’s a new communications gap.

Given the historical examples I’ve cited, and knowing my Gandhi, I can guess at the likely progression of events: first we scoff at the idea, then we fight it, but in the end we have to adopt it. I’m in Stage One: I think my friend Jon is wrong. But I’m not going to bet against him, and I’m going to continue exploring the medium.

I interview Buck Chaffee about certification

On November 7 I sat down with Clarence “Buck” Chaffee to discuss work on the STC certification program. The interview was recorded and posted to the STC Notebook blog on STC.org. You can watch it here:

Video: Steven Jong and Buck Chaffee Talk About STC’s Certification Process

(Behind the scenes: We thought there would be a rehearsal take, so I found myself looking into space instead of the camera. When we finished, the videographer liked the take and used it. Oops! I thought we should have reshot it with the office lights on, but whatever. Also, someone snarkily commented that the resulting video made him seasick. OK, so it was recorded with a digital camera braced on the back of a chair. Point taken, though I recommend the person avoid “The Blair Witch Project” …)